Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Shoveling the UCA stable

Do they still give Pulitzer Prizes for beat reporting? I nominate the Democrat-Gazette's Debra Hale-Shelton. A national jury might not find her persistent archaeology digs into the University of Central Arkansas financial disaster sufficiently dramatic. But it's public service journalism at its best.

Her latest from yesterday (and she contributed Conway local government coverage later in the evening) was about previously unreported subsidies of athletics from student housing fees. So what? $7 million in deferred maintenance on shabby student housing is what.

Has anybody finally gotten a grip on the total actually spent at UCA on athletics? We know what's been reported to the state hasn't been accurate. How does it compare with other state schools? Has UCA's grasp for higher athletic glory produced big revenue jumps in ticket sales and contributions?

UPDATE: A helpful reader sends along state figures for athletic spending in 2007-08 by state colleges and universities. He notes that UCA is not alone in drawing on auxiliary sources to fund athletics. What's not clear to me, still, is whether these figures are a full accounting of UCA spending, given recent reporting on spending from sources not previously known.

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